Creative "Elbow Actions", Sam Dekker, and Best Sets of the Week
Scissors, Splits, and Zooms
Welcome to our “Sunday Mornin’ Newsletter”, where we consolidate and break down some of the best ideas, strategies, and coaches from around the world of basketball.
There’s been a ton of great basketball this week, and in this edition we’ll explore:
Coach Jaka Lakovič’s ratiopharm Ulm Playbook (one of our favorite coaches in Europe right now)
Sam Dekker “Slappin’ Glass Podcast” Insights
Best Sets of the Week
Teams We’re Watching/Interesting Reads
Let’s dive in…
Ratiopharm Ulm Head Coach, Jaka Lakovič, is widely considered one of the best young head coaches in the European game. He had a great playing career as a pro, and comes from the Igor Kokoškov coaching tree, who, if you’ve been a subscriber, know we’re big fans of as well.
We spent the last couple of weeks digging into his extensive playbook, and yesterday put out a 20+ minute breakdown of many of the great sets he’s running with his club, ratiopharm Ulm (yes the “r” is lowercase).
One of the key areas of operation within Coach Lakovič’s offense is the Elbow. They have a variety of sets/actions in which they can enter the ball to the Elbow (all of which are shown in the video below), but here we’ll specifically focus on some of Ulm’s key actions once it gets to the Elbow.
Ulm “Elbow” Actions
#1 - “ZOOM” Action
This initial “Zoom” action, where the PG enters to the Elbow, then sets a Double Away for the Guard in the corner, who then receives a DHO, is one of the staples of Ulm’s offense. We looked at this action way back in the summer of 2020 with Utah State and Coach Craig Smith running this action for Sam Merrill (now with the Bucks).
Deeper Teaching Point: Ulm also heavily utilizes the “Reverse Ball Screen” within their PNR game, and this Zoom action gets them into essentially the same ending “look” as the Reverse Screen with similar backside reads for the ballhandler. The difference with Zoom Action, is that it’s difficult/impossible for the Defending Big to play any other coverage but a short drop as seen above. One of the advantages of the DHO as opposed to the PNR is that it’s hard to “Show/Hedge” or “Hard Switch” on a DHO because a slick Offensive Big can easily keep/fake the DHO and attack downhill.
For reference, and to see the similar “ending alignment”, here’s the look of Ulm’s “Reverse Screen” PNR Action with a “Pop and Burn” ending (included in the video as well). See in the clip below how the Defending Big is “Hedging” the “Reverse PNR Screen” while he can’t in the DHO above. A small difference, but one that these great coaches keep an eye on when trying to find an advantage to play out of.
Twists and Counters to Elbow “ZOOM” Action
Like all good teams, Ulm mixes things up out of this initial “Zoom” action. Not only can they play from the motion on the weakside (the Double Stagger to DHO), but they can also reject the Zoom Action and play a “2 Man Game” on the strongside.
And when they want to counter an over-aggressive defender on that strongside DHO, they can pull this nice backdoor set from their bag of tricks…
#2 - Elbow “Splits”, “Scissors”, and “Rips”
The next set of actions that Ulm specializes in after an Elbow catch are “Splits” and “Scissor” cuts. Both of these have a “Princetony” feel, but also have roots to actions the Slovenian National Team has run in past years under Igor Kokoskov (who Lakovič coached under). First, here is the “Split Action” run at the opposite Elbow.
And second, here is “Scissor Action”, which is run above the sameside elbow…
*Deeper Teaching Point: The real magic of these actions is directly flowing into another PNR or DHO after the initial cuts. Both the “Split” and “Scissor” cuts create situations where the Defenders guarding the cutters are slightly out of their desired PNR coverage and cannot exert the same pressure on the ballhandler as normal. That’s a lot of words to say… it’s really hard to guard if you flow into another action.
Lastly… this “Elbow Rip” action for a shooter has been a staple in the Slovenian Playbook for years (thanks Ryan Pannone), and for good reason. It works.
Additional Learning Resources
For a complete breakdown of all of Ulm’s Actions in their Playbook:
YouTube Breakdown Video (20+ minutes)
We’ve been wanting to add a player’s perspective to the Slappin’ Glass Podcast for a little while now, and we really got lucky to get such an insightful interview from former 1st Round NBA Draft Pick, Sam Dekker. Sam is in the middle of a standout year in Turkey with his club, Turk Telekom, and he was open and honest about a ton of interesting topics including:
Learning the “European Style” of play
Working on the skills that matter most
How he responds to certain styles of coaching
How the best teams handle internal/locker room conflict
Reading Screens and developing a “feel”
How much information he needs from a scouting report
And in “Overrated/Underrated?!” we asked him about:
The “Private Jet Experience” in the NBA/Europe
5 on 0 in Practice
The “Swing Offense”
Playing 3 on 3 to develop “Decision Making”
“Throwing Your Team Out of Practice”
During the interview Sam also spoke about how his current coach, Burak Gören, drew up a great ATO Hammer Set in a recent game … here is that set…
Thank you all for the support of the podcast. We’d appreciate a Rating and Review to help it continue to grow, you can do that HERE. Thank you!
As always, some great stuff being run all across the world. Here are a few of our favorites from the past week.
1) Igor Milicic - “Hot Potato Backdoor” - Some clever and fast paced action from Coach Milicic in the opening play of a recent game. Loved the sequence of quick passes before the eventual backdoor action…
2) Utah Jazz - “Side Weave to Step Up” - Coach Snyder runs some great stuff at the NBA level, and this one here is similar to the “Side Weave” action we broke down in Coach Lakovič’s playbook this week…
3) NBA/Europe/NCAA Crossover - “Rip Replace Action” - From the NBA down to NCAA D3, here was a look at the various ways teams use the “Rip Replace” action. Difficult to defend, especially with a guard who can attack and really put pressure on the rim while the shooter loops back behind…
Teams to Watch
Here are five teams we’ve enjoyed watching this week:
Northern Iowa (NCAA D1)
Germani Brescia (Italian Serie A)
ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne (French Pro A)
Turk Telekom ( Turkish Super League/Champions League)
Wofford College (NCAA D1)
Interesting Reads
Some things we enjoyed reading this week:
Fit, Culture, Family: Mark Few and Gonzaga Basketball (this on is behind a paywall at The Athletic, but worth the time if you’re a subscriber. Thanks to Coach Bobby Jordan for the heads up on this article.
Matt LaFleur: From Bombing a WR Coaching Interview to Becoming the Packers Head Coach in 5 Years
As always, thanks for reading and for the support. If you enjoy the newsletter we’d love a share to other like-minded coaches/players. You can do that here…
Have a great week coaching,
Dan and Pat
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